


Was Never America

by toadsage



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Race Changes, Black Steve Rogers, Canon-Typical Violence, Chinese James "Bucky" Barnes, Diary/Journal, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Avengers (2012), Published Diarist Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 09:23:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20337832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toadsage/pseuds/toadsage
Summary: I remember you used to say “I feel a little nervous when there are too many white people” and I don’t think I ever really understood that til I got here. It’s just a sea of white as far as the eye can see, like Central Park in mid-January.Steve Rogers woke up in 2012, long after Jim Crow ended, still Black. Steve Rogers woke up in 2012, where everyone thought they knew everything about him from reading about him through the eyes of his long-dead best friend. Steve Rogers woke up in 2012, when the last time he was concious was in '45 and one could still have a smoke inside.So, all things considered, he's coping pretty well.





	Was Never America

**Author's Note:**

> This is my gratuitous racebent au where everyone is mixed race. It's born from my love of Bucky's-wartime-writing-is-published AUs and my desire to know what everyone's reactions to the books is. In this fic Bucky is half Romanian Jewish and half Chinese, Steve is half Black half Irish. Please excuse any historical inaccuracies... I tried to be as accurate as I could but I'm sure I made some mistakes hahaha.
> 
> Title is from Langston Hughes' poem "Let America Be America Again". I urge you to read that poem if you haven't, it's beautiful. My Steve resonates a lot with it. 
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone who cheered me on/listened to me ramble about this fic because it's been stuck in my head for ages, especially my friends Moonz & Ricki!

> Stevie, I wish I was there in person to tell you how shit it is here. My writing cannot explain how much I hate it here. Brisbane – everyone here pronounces it like ‘Briz - bin’ and even if we weren’t all in uniform it would be an easy way to spot out who’s who of the Armed Forces. Americans stick out like a sore thumb, both too polished and too run down at the same time like we’re nothing to everyone here. The locals call us Six Pence because everyone pays six pence (they call it p like the letter because Australians apparently like to shorten everything) to ride the lift (elevator) at City Hall to see the view.
> 
> Brisbane’s shit. There’s no fucking view. They call it a city and I suppose I haven’t been to many cities other than the ones back home but compared to American cities Brisbane is hardly a town. It is swampy hot even in the fall (and since the seasons are backward here [like so much else] it is fall in April) and even though compared to the Philippines it is cool it is not enough to feel like home at all. The Philippines is sort of like Hong Kong where my ba’s people are from so my blood should have felt like it was okay with the heat or something. I was expecting that to happen, that when I touched foot on Asian soil I would be returning home or something. Israel of the Torah was meant to be hot too so maybe I was hoping my ma’s blood would help me with the heat there too. I must be a true born New Yorker because I am just sitting here sweating my brains out and wishing for crunchy fall leaves and cold snaps.
> 
> Considering we just came from killing all the Japs and being the only chinaman I know of in my own company I am worried sometimes too. Sometimes I wonder if I should be worried about friendly fire. If one of my own men would see my face before they see my uniform and I get a bayonet in my back before anyone realized I am an American just like them.
> 
> Perhaps that is me being a bit traitorous to my own men. I should probably not doubt the people I have to trust to have my back or I will not get any sleep at night. Japs and chinks do not look too different though and I have to wonder some nights whether others in my company think the same. Considering the American army is segregated as much as the rest of America I am not really that optimistic. I can’t tell if segregation is a good thing after all, if it protects black soldiers from worrying about whether they will get a bayonet in their backs too.
> 
> Anyway Brisbane is drier than the Philippines but not by much. It’s easier than the Philippines but not by much either, since I can’t sleep now I'm not facing imminent danger and all I can smell is sand and gunpowder. We are waiting here to be sent somewhere else, non-existent until we are players on the board again. My only life here now is fighting and shooting and maybe, if I'm lucky and someone doesn’t get me first, killing.
> 
> I don’t like where they’ve put us up. It’s too much. It’s nicer than the tenement, but I suppose anything is nicer than the tenement. The tenement was hardly the height of luxury.

Things that should have made Steve Rogers aware this is a new century, that he really is a man out of time: the white nurse waking him up; the massive glassy city that is the 21st century’s version of New York; the aliens pouring from the sky; Howard Stark’s equally loud mouthed son being older than Steve himself; the fact that people respect him automatically, he doesn’t have to fight to be heard half as much as before; the fucking food, man, the food.

What made Steve Rogers _finally get it, _snapping him out of whatever daze he’s been in since he woke up in 2011 and picked up the shield again and just kept going. He just kept going, fighting and ordering and coping and coping and coping and functioning through surprise and alien invasions and everyone he knows being dead and all, he kept going. What made him finally pause, take stock of his new surroundings, and let reality sink into his skin, was:

“I’ll take a black coffee and a Lucky Strike, thank you,” Steve asked the waitress after their meal. A week after the invasion, the world was still recovering. _New York _was still recovering. Steve was out to dinner with his new teammates, trying to get to know everyone better.  
“Cap,” Bruce said, in his soft little voice, cutting in before the waitress could reply, “you can’t smoke inside anymore.”  
“Sorry?”  
“They made it, uh, illegal, a while back. They don’t sell cigarettes at restaurants either, anymore.”  
“Oh.”  
“Would you still like the black coffee?” the waitress asked, probably glad she didn’t have to explain it.  
“If everyone’s still – yes please.”

Feeling properly chastised, Steve sipped his coffee, and said nothing.

“Is smoking completely banned?” he asked Natasha, quietly, when they all filed out of the restaurant.  
“No, you can still smoke. Just not inside.”  
“I see. Where can I buy smokes, then?”  
“A bodega should have them, or a 7/11.”  
“Right. Right. Thank you.”

So he bought a pack of Lucky Strikes, because they don’t sell looseys anymore, and apparently he can afford a pack of 20 in the future because he’s finally got money, for once in his life, and all he to do was let all his friends die without him. He bought a little lighter, too, a flimsy green plastic thing.

Then he went back to his room in the Tower, because Tony wanted them to all live together, or something, and it’s not like Steve had anywhere to go anyway, and he smoked the entire pack, methodically, until the entire room reeked of tobacco like Stark’s old office did, and he pretended he was still with the right Stark and nothing had changed.

Bucky had died not a month ago.

* * *

“I mean,” Tony said to the rest of the team, when Steve sat down at the breakfast table beside them, “he probably won’t get cancer.”

“If the radiation didn’t get you, I suppose...” Banner added.  
“Sorry,” Steve said, “what are you talking about?”  
“Your nicotine addiction,” Natasha explained, and Steve frowned.  
“Since you were gone, Cap, modern science has discovered that smoking causes cancer and makes your teeth fall out. That’s why you’re not allowed to do it inside anymore, because it’s illegal to give everyone around you lung cancer.”  
“I’m sorry,” Steve apologized, for lack of anything else to say about the situation, “I wasn’t aware.”

Everyone fell silent. Steve still felt sort of awkward eating the same food as all these white people, so casually. Sitting in such a fancy place next to a group of well-to-do caucasians, not a single other black person in sight, still made Steve’s hackles rise. Two weeks in the future, and the end of segregation still doesn’t fail to surprise him.

“I smoke outside, or in my room,” Steve defends himself, “not in the common spaces.”  
“In your _room?” _Tony exclaimed, “God, I gotta tip those cleaners double. Triple. Fuck.”

> I would kill for a fucking cigarette. That’s the only thing I can keep thinking about because anything else is too difficult for me. I think my hands are shaking which is nuts because my hands aint never shaked before not like this not even when I thought Steve was gonna die not when I was conscripted not when I shot my first bullet and it hit someone and I watched them go down and everything was a shitshow and that’s that.
> 
> More like, I think I am shaking because I am afraid. Isn’t it terrible? Shouldn’t I feel guilty, or sorry, for the fact that I killed those men on the beach. The op was destined to fail from the beginning and I don’t know why I am still alive. I should be grateful but I don’t think I am as grateful as I think I should be. I am mostly just afraid.
> 
> You wanted to sign up, and I told you not to, even when it was crushing your dreams. I know how much it hurt you for me to tell you no, not half because I have never told you know about anything else in your entire life Stevie. I think I would let you fuck my wife if you asked. But enlisting... I couldn’t let you do that. Not when you have such a life to live. You’re better than to be one of the poor suckers rotting on a beach in the Pacific. You knew better than the propaganda, you know, and I know your socialist friends and such would have told you about how bad the military is. You wanted to go anyway; you are convinced there is some good to be made in Europe.
> 
> Perhaps there is some good to be made in Europe, maybe everything is different there. Here it is just whites, me, and Japs dying. That is why I am afraid. I am afraid of everything but the kitchen sink at this point because I know I am going to be different. I am going to come out the other end broken. How could you watch the loss of human life at your own hands and not die along with them? How could you?
> 
> I am glad I do not have to be afraid for you, Stevie.

Steve understood the internet. He was a fast learner, something that everyone around him seemed to forget. He may not have been born in the information age, but he wasn’t actually a nonagenarian. He had the ability to move forward, quickly, that all young people do, when they are in the prime of their life and not yet ready to settle down into mediocrity.

He had been shown Google, and between all the primers he’d gotten on the Internet and JARVIS’s help, he’d managed to work the best part of it out. He googled “black barbers manhattan” and got a list of results. He called one of the numbers on his new Starkphone, found someone willing to take him at such late notice, and left the building without telling anyone.

He took the subway and walked a couple blocks to get to the barbershop, and when he got there, the shop was already bustling. They were playing music he didn’t recognize, and everyone had to shout over each other to be heard. It looked more like home than anything else since he’d woken up. It certainly felt more like home than fighting an alien invasion.

“Steve Rogers,” he introduced himself, “I made an appointment for 11.30.”

The girl at the front desk had long twists tied up into a high ponytail. Even perched on the top of her head, her hair fell down to her waist. It was hardly the first time he’d seen twists in the 21st century, but seeing unrelaxed hair still made him pause. She smiled at him. She looked free. Happy. He wanted to look like that so fucking badly it ached.

“Yeah, come on in, we’ll get you sorted. What do you want?”  
“I want to go natural,” he said, and she smiled.

* * *

“That’s a look,” Tony said, and for once in his life, nothing else.

Steve had settled on cornrows, since he wanted to grow his hair out a bit before he chopped off all the relaxed length. He didn’t really fancy looking like an especially patriotic Nick Fury when on assignment, and the cornrows sat underneath his helmet.

“Thank you,” Steve replied, “I think.”  
“I promise, it’s a compliment. It’s a good look, Steve. Makes you look more like a person.”  
“As opposed to what? An alien?”  
“As opposed to a historical figure. As opposed to a government shill. I don’t know, you just look like someone who’s actually alive, not a fucking Harry Potter portrait! It’s a -”  
“I know what it is, thank you.”

They stared at each other.

“You don’t think I’m a real person, Stark.”

Tony sighed.

“It’s not that -” he started, and then paused for another moment. “I grew up with you, okay? You were like a spectre of the son Howard always wished I was. You weren’t a real person. I was born when the files about you began to get declassified... I was thirteen when Bucky’s book was published. Everyone learns about Captain America in school. Everyone read about you, from a historical lens, from Bucky’s eyes, from declassified mission reports. Me, more than most, probably. I used to pretend you were my friend. I didn’t have many of those.”

Tony leaned back into his chair, picking up his tumbler and taking another sip. Steve took another bite of his toast. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t know where this was going, he didn’t know Tony. It was obvious that Tony knew him.

“Look, you don’t care,” Tony continued, “I know that. I’m just saying... It’s hard to remember that. That for you, you haven’t had the same lifetime of being known that I do. Or that I have of you, I mean. We don’t have to be friends, or anything. I know you don’t trust me. I don’t even know what I’m saying. I hope you’re settling into the 21st century okay.”

Steve finished his toast as Tony got up from the chair, groaning as he rose to his feet. He grabbed his tumbler and a banana from the fruit bowl – Steve was highly suspicious of 21st century bananas since he’d tried one a week ago and had been rudely surprised by its flavor – and started to leave.

“Stark,” Steve said, and Tony paused, “we can be friends. I mean, we are friends.”  
Tony just gave him a sad smile. “You can call me Tony, you know.”

> Remember your mother’s wake? How creepy it was? Her body sitting propped up on the bed in the middle of the bedroom, people milling in and out of your apartment, around her bed, moving in swarms like bees in the springtime. I swear to fuck, that woman’s death did more for segregation than any sort of protest. I’d never seen so many whites and blacks in the same place, talking to each other. Sarah Rogers was a good woman.
> 
> Miss Mary got us all drunk on wine and whiskey and Fr McGregor turned a blind eye to everyone having a bloody good time. Your mother’s friend Sarah G. told us all about the times your mother used to lead bible study and your aunt told us how your mother used to take care of her children when she and your uncle had to work and your father’s cousin told us how she’d tell off anyone who spoke poorly of her marriage and Fr McGregor told us about how she’d quote the Bible at anyone who questioned her husband’s presence at church until their ears bled.
> 
> Jesus was colored, she’d like to say.
> 
> She didn’t say anything as a corpse in that bed, though. Perfectly still. Even as ill as she got at the end, I’d never seen her rest like that. Your mother was brimming with energy, just like yourself.
> 
> G-d, the keening. Miss Mary got started and then all the women in the room continued, been off the boat last week or not in a century, Irish women know how to throw a romp! You were there holding your mother’s hand and you were slumped against the side of the bed and you were wailing, just losing all sense of propriety and it was a good thing there were so many others crying or it would have been very embarrassing. The landlord was there to pay his respects so good old Mr. Jones did not even dare to make a complaint about the noise.
> 
> The keening still echoes sometimes, I think about it whenever someone out here dies. I think about it when I think about when I will die. I hope they get my body to you and even though I am not Irish I think I would like it if you held my hand and wailed a little bit too because then I think it would mean I had made an impression just like Sarah Rogers, may peace be upon her. I think if I had a fourth of the people traipsing through your apartment that day come to remember me I would be happy. I would have done something good in this horrid world.

“How was your first press conference?” Natasha purred as he walked into the room, “everyone play nice?”  
“Not my first press conference,” he replied.  
“Your first press conference in the 21st century, alone,” she corrected herself.

Natasha was the kind of woman who knew she was beautiful, but didn’t care for anyone else to know it. He’s seen her on the clock, using her sexuality to assert dominance over everyone she works with. At home, though, she liked to laze around in sweatpants and hooded sweatshirts.

“It was fine.”

It was not fine. Everyone had a lot of questions about things that Steve did not necessarily love talking about. Steve had accidentally got himself into a lot of trouble. It was not something he wanted to talk about.

Natasha raised a single, perfect eyebrow, as she raised the television remote. She turned it on, and it was tuned to a broadcast of his press conference. Fuck.

“Captain Rogers, how do you feel about the US Army misrepresenting your race to the public for 25 years?”

When he’d heard the question the first time, he’d had to ball his hands into fists and think of Bucky telling him off before he answered. _Don’t test them, pal, _Bucky used to say, _they want to see you lose your temper. They want an excuse to get you. _

“I was born in a different time. My grandparents were slaves. I became Captain America, not for recognition or fame, but because it was the right thing to do. I wanted to help people, I wanted to fight fascism, I wanted victory abroad _and _at home. I understand why the United States Army misrepresented my identity, and I don’t hold any grudges. I am glad that the American people now understand it is a black man who first held the title of Captain America.”

All the reporters tried to get a good shot of his speech, and the one they’re playing on CNN is pretty close up. Steve couldn’t remember how close CNN was to his face, but the television made it seem like they were barely a foot away.

“Nice speech,” Natasha said.  
“Thank you,” Steve replied, even as he knew what would come next.

“Captain Rogers! How do you feel about Bucky Barnes’ love for you?”  
“I believe it is well documented that we were friends.”  
“I mean his romantic love!”  
“Excuse me?”  
“Did he ever tell you?”  
“That’s a serious accusation, Miss. I ask you not to malign a dead soldier’s character.”

On the television, all hell broke loose, and Steve was immediately carted offstage. Beside him, Natasha pulled a face.

“That part... you could have done better.”  
“I need a smoke.”

> I MISS COCAINE!!!!!
> 
> * * *
> 
> Sorry Steve. I know you said I am a respectable soldier now and am representing the United States Army. So I cannot take cocaine anymore. Still I cannot help but remember the feeling of the high. I miss it. I think marching would be so much more enjoyable if we were all gowed up. HST [Hip Sing Tong] would have a lot of business in Italy. I suppose that is why the mafia is so big!
> 
> Don’t throw a fit; I am not going to risk imprisonment over a little fun, even if I could die tomorrow. If I wanted to risk imprisonment for some fun I would ask Private McCleary if he’d like to have it off on third watch. He is very attractive. I know you would approve, if you knew I was bent and all.
> 
> In Italy it is very cold. I miss Brisbane now, I miss the Philippines. At least when it is hot you can take off layers (as long as command is not watching) but when it is cold we don’t have any more fucking layers to put on. Third watch is extremely fucking cold, and I would love to have someone to snuggle up to, if you know what I mean. (Wink).
> 
> Remember those New York winters when we sure as fuck couldn’t pay for any heating, and all of our blankets were threadbare and draughty, and we would cuddle up on the twin bed and it’d just be warm. For all your illnesses, you always ran warm. My little hot water bottle, for when I couldn’t afford to run the stove enough to boil water.
> 
> I miss the smell of your hair, the cheap soap you’d always use. It was always rough and tickly against my throat when you curled into my chest, still stinking of Brylcreem. The ads were full of shit, our hair could have stopped a fucking bomb. I miss it, the routine of the comb. The way I could run my fingers across the top of your head and not a hair would be out of place.
> 
> I hope you have Brylcreem back in Brooklyn, Stevie. Hope you are still going to Sunday mass with your curls ironed perfectly flat and gum-pasted to the sides of your head. Wouldn’t I give anything to see that again.

Bucky had a book. Natasha presented Steve with the copy. The spine was faded and cracked, like the book had been read a few times and then relegated to a shelf to languish.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve asked, staring at the image of his _own _sketch of Bucky that graced the cover. He didn’t recognize the exact sketch, couldn’t really have placed when or where he drew it, given it was only a headshot of Bucky’s profile, caught in a pensive mood. _Sometimes, I feel a little nervous, _the cover read, _James Buchanan Barnes. _Steve scoffed.

“We weren’t sure how you would react… To some of the contents.” Natasha was scanning his face for his reaction. He wasn’t sure how she thought he would react, but it certainly wasn’t like this. “Some parts of the book get very… graphic.”

“No shit,” Steve replied, flicking through the pages, landing on one of the glossy color photo pages scattered throughout the book. This one was a picture of the Harlem neighborhood they grew up in, all sepia-toned and dark. The picture looked nothing like the streets Steve knew. “It’s Bucky. He never closed his mouth in his fuckin’ life.”

Natasha looked at him, her eyes narrowed in thought.

“Sorry ma’am,” Steve apologized, snapping the book shut. “I forgot my place.”  
“Steve,” she said, softly, like a dame cajoling a frightened horse, “what place?”  
Steve didn’t want to meet her eyes. He didn’t know how to answer the question. It felt too much like a test; though Natasha had a way of making every question feel like a test he was ill-prepared to take. “I forgot myself. Please forgive my bad language.”  
“Steve, you’ve _met _Tony. And Bruce, and Clint, and me. We’re not exactly the most polite group of people on Earth; you don’t have to apologize to me for swearing.”  
“Well, still. Sorry.”  
She sighed. “We were unsure of how you’d take his confessions of feelings for you. He makes a point to mention your more… upstanding tendencies.”  
“My… upstanding tendencies?” The Steve Bucky knew could hardly be described as _upstanding. _  
“He makes a point to reference how disapproving you were of his drug and sex habits. We didn’t want to lead with the expose of your best friend’s inner thoughts.”  
“You understand I _lived _with the man, did you not? Do you think he was truly so skilled at hiding his habits from me?”  
“The book seems to mention you weren’t aware of his proclivities.”  
“Mary, _mother _of God. Why do you seem to think I’d lose my mind if I knew Bucky was queer? I knew he was bent long before he knew himself! It’s hardly new information.”  
“Oh.”  
“What do you _mean, _‘oh’. Just because I woke up from the forties doesn’t mean I’m homophobic.”  
“We didn’t realize.”  
“Don’t you track my Google search history?”  
“We don’t have surveillance on it constantly.”  
“Natasha. I’m bisexual. I have looked up the progress of LGBT rights since I went down. I was bisexual before I went down and I’m certainly still bisexual. Bucky was fully aware of the fact, given that we lived together. I am sure that nothing written in Bucky’s book will surprise me. Now, if you excuse me, I am going to understand exactly which other misconceptions you have about me that I’ll have to correct.”

> Here lies Wong Baak Kei Samuel. The whole op was a shitshow from the start. I’m sure no one was expecting to get captured, but really only because none of us were really expecting to live long enough to see the inside of a German cell.
> 
> Those Krauts sure are efficient. Were I not squirrelled away on the side of the battle, trying to take a marksman’s spot (at least the 107th are appreciative enough of having a marksman covering their six they let me go my own way) I would have been easily captured as a H.
> 
> Good thing I was able to at least see the turn of the tide through my sight and quick thinking though because just as I abandoned my own dog tags & scooped up the ones belonging to the poor sod James B. Barnes who was as dead as a horse in glue factory the rest of the 107th were rounded up by the Jerries. I was shitting my pants at that point, hoping they didn’t catch me slipping a dead man’s ID around my own yellow-bellied neck.
> 
> I remember thinking “G-d if I get out of this alive I will write poor James B. Barnes’ parents a letter my bloody self.” (I suppose I have to do that now, & I promise you I will write it the second I am able to finish getting my recounting of this sordid tale out of my brain.)
> 
> Principles of the matter are all well and good Stevie (& I know I am doing my whole family a disservice & Ms. Winifred Esther Wong shan’t be happy) but let me tell you, when you’ve got a stream of hot piss running down your uniform because you just saw the Krauts shoot a man not a foot away from you, you take the easy way out. So I am Catholic now apparently. If you ever read this, Stevie, you can take me to church now.
> 
> Anyway I am glad I did that because they did segregate us once we got to the factory. I believe the 2 categories were “Aryans” and “poor sons of bitches who were born with dark hair” so maybe the Germans are truly ahead of the Americans in that regard as I was put in a cell with both colored & white men. I don’t know if the Jewish soldiers were carted off somewhere else or spread among the cells because I hadn’t dared to ask in case a guard overheard.
> 
> <strike>I knew by the fifth day we weren’t going to be saved</strike> <strike>When they carted me off I said</strike> <strike>I don’t know what Zola did to me but I’m not</strike> <strike>When I close my eyes at night I still hear his voice I still hear the screams in the next room I still see the blood, my own blood, too much of my own fucking blood</strike>
> 
> I could have cried when I saw you, Stevie. I was so happy to just see your face again. I thought I never would. I was more fucking gutted about not seeing you again than I was about seeing my own mother’s face again. I feel guilty for being glad you’re in the middle of a warzone, but I do. I love you so much it is suffocating, and I do not know whether I am smothering you or myself.

“So you finally were given the book, huh, Cap,” Tony sauntered into the living room with all the swagger of a man who owned the entire building. Steve could hardly blame him, if Steve had grown up with half the luxuries Tony enjoyed, he would most likely be an asshole too.  
“Yeah.”  
“Got to the part about the nose candy yet, Cap? Tell me, how outraged were you?”  
“Don’t harass the good captain about drugs at ten o’clock in the morning,” said the attractive Black man who followed him into the room.

Steve stared at him, relieved at last to see another black face in the Tower.

“I’m Colonel James Rhodes. It’s an honor to meet you, Captain.”  
Steve scrambled to his feet, suddenly embarrassed about his slovenly appearance, and stood to attention. “Captain Steve Rogers. The pleasure is all mine, I assure you.”  
“Seriously? Do we need to be so fucking formal?” Tony interjected, but Steve and Rhodes both ignored him.  
“At ease,” Rhodes looked uncomfortable, at least, hopefully as much as Steve was. “You’re a personal, uh, hero of mine. It’s really such an honor to meet you.”  
“Well, thank you. I’m honored to hear that, Colonel.”  
“We get it! You’re all honored, I want to hear Captain America’s opinions on angel dust!”  
“Shut up Tony,” Rhodes snapped, and Steve tried desperately not to laugh. “I’m sorry for him.”  
“I live with him, I’m used to it.”  
“Thank you for your service,” Rhodes quipped, solemnly, and Steve couldn’t hold it in.

He laughed, and something in the back of his mind registered that this was the first time he’d laughed with another person since waking up. He turned, and Tony was staring at him, gaping.

“Oh! So your face isn’t stuck in a permanent scowl! Good to know.”  
“Ignore Tony, seriously, Captain. He means well, I promise.”  
“Call me Steve, if I’m to take your word.”  
“Rhodey.”  
“Rhodey,” Steve repeated, still smiling.

“_Rhodey, _I thought we were hanging out,” Tony whined.  
“Tony, we’re all adults here,” Steve said, keeping his face as blank as he possibly could, “please call Bucky’s cocaine habit what it was.”

That shut Tony up for all of five seconds, and the silence was blessed while it existed.  
“You _knew?_”  
“Who do you think pestered him to buy it?” Steve replied, even though that wasn’t how the interaction happened at all.  
“Seriously? Are you saying Captain America’s a crackhead? Holy shit! How did no one know about this –“  
“Great to meet you, Rhodey,” Steve cut Tony off, gathering his book and tablet, “hopefully I’ll see you again soon.”  
“I’m here for the week, let’s grab lunch.”  
“Great! Have a good day, Rhodey.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr @buckyurl.


End file.
